Native Client is a Google-developed technology for running x86 native code in Web applications. Google hopes the code will make it easier for developers to write richer browser-based applications that run across a range of browsers and operating systems.

Google's security contest for Native Client is a great way to attract early notice to the project. Given the projects' cross-platform appeal, it's also an ingenious way to ensure that it starts to build a cross-platform community that may well prove to be useful far beyond the initial security holes for which the contest is targeted.

The money on offer ($8,192 for first prize) isn't huge, but that's not really the point behind a contest like this, anyway. The real first prize will be impressing Google and one's developer peers with the ability to identify and squash security bugs. That's the real currency of open-source development, anyway: reputation.

About the author

Matt Asay is chief operating officer at Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux operating system. Prior to Canonical, Matt was general manager of the Americas division and vice president of business development at Alfresco, an open-source applications company. Matt brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay.
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